"It's as if an American eagle had
attacked the president of the United States..." cried Las Vegas
resident in the Boston Globe column, expressing the
perturbation of the worldwide gambling capital. The oasis of neons in
the middle of Nevada desert cannot get over the drama which hit one
of its biggest stars: Roy Horn, one half of the duo of suntanned
illusionists, Siegfried and Roy. The "Masters of the Impossible"
show, futuristic combination mixed with their white
tigers(1),
has been running for several decades. It is one of the most popular
shows in Las Vegas. Or rather, was: in October 3, 2003, Roy was
attacked on stage by one of his big cats, and is now hanging between
life and death. The show was suspended.

Candles, balloons, fan letters
accumulated at the foot of the bronze statue of Siegfried and Roy in
front of the hotel-casino MGM Mirage, which housed their show since
1990. From California's new governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to
Elizabeth Taylor, politicians and stars sent their best wishes for
Roy's recovery. The tabloids printed columns, day after day, about
the fight of the University Medical Center doctors for Roy's life.
The blond Siegfried Fischbacher and the dark-haired Roy Horn are not
always very well-known outside Las Vegas and their native Germany,
but they are icons of the American popular culture: featured in films
such as Casino by Martin Scorsese, parodied in cartoon The
Simpsons, and made fun of by comics of prime time television,
such as Jay Leno and David Letterman who happily made fun of the
flamboyant illusionists, their sharp accent, and huge leather
codpieces protecting their manhood from the big cats
claws.

Like a rag doll

The jokes stopped in October 3, 2003.
That night, Siegfried and Roy entered the stage of the theater in the
gigantic hotel-casino with tropical theme, constructed especially for
them. Each had a white tiger on a chain at his side. For forty-four
years the illusionists performed together, perfect hairstyles,
gleaming smiles. Their specialty: to make big cats "disappear". Their
magic word: "Sarmoti!", an abracadabra sort, which serves also
as a greeting, is acronym of Siegfried And Roy, Masters Of The
Impossible. Inside the theater is 1 500 spectators from the whole
world, some of whom waited weeks for a ticket. Expensive: 225 dollars
in average. Roy introduces a seven years old white Bengal tiger,
Montecore. "This is his first time on stage!", Roy announces. Nothing
like nourishing the suspense, while in reality, the big cat
participated in the show for six years.

Suddenly, Montecore throws himself on
Roy and bites his arm. The illusionist attempts to break free. In
front of the audience which thinks that they are witnessing a stunt,
he hits the tiger over his head with a microphone. No use against 270
kg. Montecore sinks his teeth in Roy's neck, drags him like a rag
doll. The technicians are forced to use fire extinguishers to make
the tiger let go of his prey. Roy Horn suffers a stroke on the way to
the hospital.

His survival is a true 'miracle",
according to the neurosurgeon who operated on Roy, Roy remains
incapable to speak, and is without a doubt partially paralyzed. He
was celebrating his 59th birthday in the evening of the accident.

Why Montecore attacked his master?
That remains a mystery. During almost half century of shows, the duo
was never subjected to a single aggression act from the animal stars
of the show, assured Alan Feldman, spokesperson of the Mirage. Roy
Horn himself, however, had mentioned that he brushed by a disaster
two times. Once with a black panther, that, in an angry fit "almost
castrated him," according to an interview granted to Vanity
Fair in 1999. Another day, with a Siberian tiger which nailed him
to the ground. "Our eyes met. I realized that she did not want to
play anymore but was getting ready to bite me," he related to
Associated Press three years ago. "Instinctively, I bit her nose as
strong as I could. She never tried to bite me again." Two isolated
incidents and off-stage.

"Who are these curious characters?
Are they brothers?", visitors regularly inquire from the Las Vegas
taxi drivers. Siegfried and Roy very rarely give interviews and live
disconnected from the reality, a little as their friend Michael
Jackson, in an immense villa on the border of Las Vegas, with 55
white tigers, 38 servants and 16 lions. The menagerie moves around
under a ceiling which is a replica of Sistine Chapel in Vatican. The
two illusionists also own an estate nicknamed Little Bavaria, where
the loud speakers broadcast German organ music. Both sons of Nazi
soldiers, products of abusive families, they shared the same desire:
to flee the post-war Germany.

Through Europe with a
leopard

They met at the end of the 50's on a
cruise ship. Roy Horn was 15 years old and worked as a captain's
servant. 21 years old Siegfried Fischbacher was a magician on the
ship. The duo performed through Europe with a leopard, worked at the
Folies Bergère in Paris, before landing in Las Vegas.
The rest, as their friend Arnold Schwarzenegger said, "Is the most
beautiful story of immigrants that I know: two guys came to the
United States with nothing, and realized their dreams."

For forty-four years they divided
their tasks evenly: Siegfried is in charge of magic and illusion; Roy
masters the beasts. They are secretive about their private life: they
were lovers a long time ago, according to their friend, actress
Shirley MacLaine; but today they live separately. Siegfried's bedroom
is painted with a gigantic picture of him, nude, surrounded by
panthers.

"All his life, Roy was a mystery. We
really do not know him," Siegfried revealed recently on television,
causing general bewilderment. After their life together and 30 000
shows?

Roy, apparently, spends more time
with the big cats than with humans. Sleeping with the baby tigers in
the manor, swimming with them in his Hollywood-style swimming pool
and meditating every morning with a white tiger named Mantra. His
almost transcendental link with the big cats is so strong that he
thinks he was a tiger in a previous life. But when a week after the
almost fatal Montecore's attack hospital team removed his respiratory
tube, the first person Roy asked to see was his dog.

Distracted by a puffed
hairstyle

In tears, Roy's partner Siegfried
assured Larry King on CNN that Montecore's bite was a gesture of
love, "Nothing vicious, nothing mean." According to him, the tiger
came to Roy's rescue, because he stumbled: "Roy falls, and [the
tiger] wants to protect him, because there is danger, you
understand? Then he caries Roy and takes him backstage behind the
curtain." The wealthy former owner of The Mirage, Steve Wynn, has
another explanation: the tiger was distracted by the puffed hairstyle
of a female audience member in the first row, who, finding him
charming, attempted to scratch his chin. Roy jumped in to separate
them. The experts are less romantic: Jonathan Kraft, member of
Arizona's "Keepers of the Wild", believes that the tiger acted as if
it had the intention to kill. Specialist in animal behavior from
Dallas, Louis Dorfman, declared, that "stress caused Montecore to
bite. The tiger wanted to express his irritation."

On the way to the hospital, Roy,
short of breath, requested that Montecore be spared. His plea was
respected: the tiger, put briefly in quarantine, rejoined the group
of about sixty big cats in their habitat at The Mirage, nicknamed
"Secret Garden." Far from being touched, PETA, the American leading
protective society for animals, roars in a letter addressed to the
illusionist confined to bed: "Maybe this horrifying incident will
force you to admit that a stage beneath the spotlights, with loud
music and screaming audience, is not a natural habitat of tigers and
lions!" With the support of Pamela Anderson, PETA accused the federal
department of agriculture, USDA, (that has, without surprise,
launched an investigation of the attack), to be very indulgent with
Siegfried and Roy. The routine inspections of last three years run
just like a charm, and PETA suspects that the USDA inspectors had
been enchanted by free tickets to the show. With the USDA inspectors
on their back, and the show room empty, MGM/Mirage licks its
injuries. The hotel-casino, which has a life contract with Siegfried
and Roy, lost its main attraction for tourists. "When you go to New
York, you go see the statue of Liberty. In Las Vegas, you go see
Siegfried and Roy," stated Bernie Yuman, the duo's manager. The joint
MGM/Mirage announced to its shareholders that the cancellation of the
show will cost them presumably 2,5 million dollars per
quarter.

A show abominably
kitsch

The hotel terminated immediately the
267 employees of the show, which was canceled at least until
Christmas... With 75 to 80 advertised shows, Las Vegas' economical
plan should not suffer too severely, but there is a feeling of
sadness: the disappearance of Siegfried and Roy marks the end of an
era.

David Hickey, professor of criticism
at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas (UNLV), described the show
as a "conflation combining Wagner, Barnum, Rousseau, Pink Floyd,
Fantasia, Peter Pan and Midsummer Night's Dream." An English
critic who came into Las Vegas recently, characterized it with more
insight as abominably kitsch, adding: "The true reason why everyone
is here, is to see the white meat-eaters, and maybe, just once,
reverse the situation."

(1) The white,
native tigers of the Himalayas, are on the brink to extinction. Their
color makes them visible to prey.